Dexter Set to Unveil Geocache Trail on Sunday

A new outdoor recreational activity is coming to Dexter that is sure to excite the inner treasure hunter in both young and old alike.

The Dexter Parks Geocache Trail will open on Sunday with an official kick-off and demonstration by the Michigan Geocaching Organization. The trail was completed this year with a goal to promote the numerous parks throughout the village.

"The hobby has a pretty large following, so we're hoping that by offering a new trail in Dexter, we will draw more people to the community who in turn will support our local merchants," Allison Bishop, community development director said.

Known by players as "a high tech game of hide and seek," geocaching participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or cell phone and other navigational techniques to find containers, called "geocaches" or "caches," hidden all over Michigan and other parts of the United States.

According to Roger Beck, Michigan Geocaching Organization (MiGo) member, a typical cache is a small waterproof container hidden somewhere in the community and equipped with a logbook, where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. Beck said seven caches have been installed in seven of Dexter's parks including the unfinished Mill Creek Park.

"Some are tricky to find, but if you follow the GPS coordinates, you will be able to locate all seven," Beck said.

He said currently there are 20,000 caches across Michigan. Caches are also located in more than 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents. Players can visit www.geocaching.com to find caches, and once they find all the caches in a certain area, they receive a path tag (a small customized token with the name of the cache trail printed on it).

"Geocaching is becoming very popular in Michigan," Beck said. "I've been doing it for five years and it's taken me places I would have never visited."

One of the main attractions to the sport is its relative cost.

"You only need a GPS unit or a smart phone and the time to travel around to different areas," he said. "The hobby is like any other: you get out of it what you put into it."

Beck and other members of MiGo will visit from 2-4 p.m. Sunday to offer instruction on geocaching and be available to answer questions. Visitors can also try out the GPS units to search for temporary caches and learn about the geocache trail in Dexter.

"It's always neat to expand and get more people involved in geocaching," Beck said. "We're looking forward to adding Dexter as another element to the geocache trails in Michigan."

For more information, visit http://www.mi-geocaching.org/

Players can visit geocaching.com